Irony Maiden
Chapter 01: Family woes
Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. Iron Man and other Marvel Comics characters are owned by The Walt Disney Company.
This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.
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"Helen Stark…"
"I have heard her being called many different things, a visionary, a genius, even an American Patriot."
"I prefer to call her mom."
"When our father Jake Stark died most people thought that it was the end of an era. An era that started fifty years earlier when Howard 'Mad Dog' Stark patented his first invention and heralded the technological wonders that help defeat fascism, and that years later contributed to keep the cold war for heating up… Helen frankly disagreed with that assessment."
"In those dark years she refused to let Stark Industries fade away, fought to bring forth some of the brightest minds in her generation to complete the marvels that our father had left unfinished and let Reagan's Star Wars program become the shining star that the Russians simply couldn't surpass. At the same time she restructured the company into the industrial behemoth it is nowadays."
"But for us her most important achievement was to nurture us, not letting the illusions of money and power poison our thoughts, always pushing us towards our full potential. And once our education was complete she guided us to finally take part of the Stark legacy, her legacy."
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present this year's Apogee Award to Mrs. Helen Stark, a great businesswoman, visionary and most important of all a great mother."
With that the two young women received their mother in the middle of the cheers of the crowd.
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"Miss Stark! Excuse me, Miss Stark!" The women leaving the lobby of the hotel were more surprised to hear a reporter than the fact that said reporter was looking for them. At least she was alone, without a camera, or even worse a news crew.
"Sandi Griffin, Val Magazine. Can I ask you a couple of questions?" Val Magazine was to fashion the same that Playboy was to horny men; a niche magazine that frequently, and surprisingly, wrote articles of extremely high quality and of diverse thematic.
In other words the magazine's name, alongside the fashionable reporter who used it, pushed all of Quinn's buttons at the same time.
"She's cute; is all right?" The very same instant they heard the name of the magazine both of the older women resigned themselves to accompany the redheaded girl to what could be a boring Q&A session.
"All you've been called the Medici of our time. What do you say to that?"
"Absolutely ridiculous. We are a family of builders not of bankers." Helen warily answered, she didn't know history as well as Daria and she didn't want to fall in a pitfall.
"And what do you say about the other nickname given to your family, the Merchants of Death?"
"That's not bad." Answered Daria as her companions cringed; there were many reasons Daria didn't offered half as many interviews as the other two, but they easily resumed as a simple fact. Daria didn't suffer fools gladly.
"Let me guess. Berkeley?" She asked, her glasses shining with their HUD display already showing the answer via Amy before the reporter could answer. "Brown, actually."
"Well, Ms. Brown, it's an imperfect world, but it's the only one we've got. I guarantee you, the day weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace, I'll start making bricks and beams for baby hospitals."
"Rehearse that much?" The reporters answer however did bring a smile to her face. "Every night in front of the mirror before bedtime."
Then she continued with her tirade. "My grandfather had a philosophy: 'Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.'"
"That's a great line coming from the guy's family selling those sticks to everyone and their dog, a lot of people would also call that war profiteering."
The last part strung a cord. Daria wasn't trying anymore to play word games or to continue playing with the reporter. "Tell me, do you plan to report on the millions we've saved by advancing medical technology or kept from starvation with our intelli-crops? I'm guessing no, for you is always guns, guns, guns, that kind of obsession for things that go bang in the night is perfect for selling magazines, isn't it?"
"You ever lose an hour of sleep your whole life?" Sandi keep asking the girl as she furiously walked away from the conversation, her mother hot in her heels.
Quinn meanwhile approached the blonde reporter, intending to do as much damage control as she could. "Sorry about that, my sister is not, how can I put it? She dislikes people ignoring most of the good stuff the company does and fixates in what is in the end a limited division of Stark Industries. So why don't we go to the bar and I can give you a more detailed interview while we drink something?"
Outside the lobby, in one of the gardens mother and daughter were having their own conversation.
"Daria, would it hurt you to be a little more polite with reporters? That kind of outburst is self-defeating and hurts the company in the long run."
"So the company is what worrying you? I didn't saw you complaining too hard about the war profiteering part. Guess you don't care."
"As you said yourself, the family business is to bring peace to the world, and that means that sometimes people will misunderstand the motivation of your work."
"As if I had a choice for my line of work, or have you forgotten that you brought me to the company as an 'intern' before I could graduate from Raft via remote education? Yet I didn't saw you complaining about Quinn and I finishing MIT and Browning years before most people get their high school diploma."
"Daria you know how many problems we were having at the time, if the helicarrier project went overboard we would have been forced to do some serious personnel cuts. For all the hype about our R&D labs you still were able to do ten times the work they did just in time. And you finished your career via remote education, in fact you developed Raft's remote education program."
"That's so like you Helen, always the letter of the deal, never the spirit. I'm going to bed, got a plane to catch tomorrow. Good Night." Helen could only see her eldest daughter hurriedly walk towards the hotel, barely restraining the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
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"Good morning. It's 7:00 a.m." A female voice said to the guest in the luxurious suite.
"The weather in Malibu is 72 degrees with scattered clouds." A cursory examination of the room would find that the only person in there was in the bed asleep as a rock.
"The surf conditions are fair with waist-to-shoulder high lines. High tide will be at 10:52 a.m." A more careful examination then would hear that the voice is coming from the beyond-latest generation laptop in the middle of the room and conclude that is nothing more than a preprogramed alarm.
A groggy voice then came from the bed. "Why are you telling me the surf conditions Amy if you know I don't do surf?"
Everyone who then heard the answer would no longer believe the voice to be something as mundane as an alarm.
"Well Daria, Quinn said that you might appreciate a hunk or two in the morning that you do not need to pay for, also I'm the fun A.I., this is expected of me." Before Daria could comment about either Quinn's barb or the idea of a fun A.I. a second voice joined the fray. "Says the glorified secretary, I guess that telling the hour like an alarm clock is the full extension of your capabilities."
"Rita, Amy. Stop arguing right now." Daria groaned, in retrospective it had been a really bad idea from both Quinn and herself to program their social-butler and technical assistant A.I.'s to reproduce the constant fighting of their late aunts alongside their sense of humor.
However she didn't think that there was anything or anyone in the world as useful as they were. Rita was designed from the ground up to use its powerful physics engine and gigantic engineering library to assist in the production of practical tech, doing in a matter of minutes the millions of calculations needed to transform preliminary models into fully functioning prototypes ready for advanced testing using off-the-shelf parts and logging the most efficient methodology for mass production. On the other hand Amy was tasked to manage the social footprint of the sisters, something that sounded a lot less complex than the stuff done by her digital sister, but in reality she controlled all of the influx of information that existed on the Stark family via the social networks and internet. She could and would leak false or true rumors to MySpace, Tweeter and Facebook and subtly manipulate public opinion as well as hiding whatever vices they wanted to remain hidden. The level of abstract thought needed to do so made Daria respect her sister's superior social and programing skills.
And talking about her little sister… "Rita, please hack the hotel database and send an order for a hangover cure to the bar, have them bring it to Quinn's suite. I'm sleeping another hour before preparing myself for Stacy's arrival. And be discreet." They had the tacit and unspoken agreement that if Quinn didn't brought attention to Daria's use of escorts to keep her bed warm at night then she wouldn't do the same with Quinn's drinking issues. For experience she knew that if Rita detected her mother waking up early she would abort the order without further instructions.
While they would never say out loud each sister hopped that the constant ribbing done to the other would eventually force them to seek help. However until now there was no such luck.
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Two hours later Daria was already up and talking business while waiting for the arrival of her Air Force liaison, usually she would have gone with either a videoconference or a chat but this time was using a phone out of deference. "Claire good morning, how's the climate on Baxter Building, are Reed and Sue still keeping you awake at night?"
"No, this time it seems that Johnny's teased a little too much Ben and they had a bit of a fight, they rattled the walls a bit, and I think the earthquake was Ben hitting the ground at one point or another, nothing serious but you know how much noise they can make when they play like that. At least is still less noisy than some of the stuff my previous roommates did."
"Those leeches you called roommates were something if you consider a fight between a walking boulder and a flying match to be better. Now what can you tell me about the Pollock?"
"The price is raising, there's another buyer for 'The Springs'. They're offering thirty million for the neighborhood, and I'm guessing they're planning to make a mall where it stands."
"Pollock is not my favorite artist, but my publishing house could use the tax deductions and I can't miss a chance to give the finger to a mall so take budget of, lest say a hundred million and get me the block, whatever money is left after that use it to get settlements with the neighbors, kick out the hipsters and if there is anyone left anyone with a good reason to stay then repair their apartments so they match Pollock's.
"Daria a hundred million is too…"
"Too little money? Make it three hundred then, we'll use the free space as a museum, get a Siqueiros or two loaned from Mexico and see if one or two of your friends are willing to loan pieces too, the rest round it up with my personal collection. Save the best space to your work."
"I, I see. I'll start making the arrangements for it."
"Oh, and don't forget inviting Ben and Sue to the grand opening, you can even make a double date. If Johnny wants to go tell him he is still banned from all museums in the state of New York for his last stunt. Or better yet, to avoid him crashing the inauguration anyway just buy him a ticket for Johnny Blaze's suicidal stunts. The morons that go to those shows won't mind being set on fire."
"And what about you Daria, aren't you coming to the inauguration? You can't use the full agenda excuse this time, there's not a set date yet."
"And be there with all those hipsters, rich guys trying to look cultured and so called artists who can barely draw but still can snuff other, more sincere works such as yours? No thanks; I'll go some other day, probably when it's closed off for maintenance or something like that." Then an E-mail icon on her glasses illuminated, reading the highlights she added. "Claire, Helen and Quinn are waiting for me for breakfast; I let Amy set up the details. See you when I'm back from Afghanistan."
"See you Daria, be careful. That place is dangerous."
"Don't worry, the military likes their toys too much for me getting a bu-bu, is going to be a challenge for me getting free of my nannies long enough to reach the latrines. See you later." That said, the call ended and Daria went to her mother's room for a quick private breakfast.
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"And Daria, could you please do a couple of feelers about any other future needs for the Army? You know what your dad always said, 'A general might order, but is the sergeant who does', so please keep an ear on the ground, that way we might steal a march from our competitors." Helen said as she drank her coffee. "Don't worry mom, I'll pass a questionnaire to the grunts and I'll even throw a bulletproof vest with every fifth ambush."
As usual their breakfast were almost exclusively business only, on the flipside casual dinners were considered family time and shop talk was frowned upon; which neatly explained why they seldom had any dinners which didn't require long dresses.
"Young lady you shouldn't mock the hardships the soldiers suffer for us. If you really don't want to go to the semi-official unveiling of the Jericho then you might want to join the Official Cocktail in DC?"
With that both Daria and Quinn grimaced, when they saw the schedule that Tim O'Neill prepared for the Jericho's presentation to the world at large they had an honest talk of who would do each task. One of them would be forced to stay an entire week in one of the most dangerous and boring locations of the planet, presenting the Jericho in live fire trials and then would do a tour to the maintenance depots where Stark-tech was repaired to see that their quality standards were hold. Considering the sheer amount of such depots in the country is was going to be a backbreaking job. On the other hand the other was going to be their mother's wingman during the political show and tell that would follow; explaining the politicians in very small words how Jericho works and why it's good for the soldiers to have it. That, while bothersome would still be better than the privations that the trip would entail, but then they discovered that on the guest list both Eric Schrecter the Second and Alexander Graham Hammer would be part of the entire event and suddenly the dust, bored soldiers and bloodthirsty insurgents looked a lot better.
In the end Daria bite the bullet and volunteered to the Afghanistan job because she was better at hardware than Quinn, worse than her in politics, and because she wanted to see if her tour unveiled enough information on the Soviet War in Afghanistan for a new Melody Power's book. That she would miss the clumsy seduction attempts of Graham and the Erik's effort to discredit any member of the family with the objective to gain the title of C.E.O. or at least throw their way his share of work was only a happy coincidence.
"No need to bring out the heavy artillery mom, I'll be good and while I'm there I probably going to casually mention the Air Force that I'm developing a counter to the Palladium guidance system, and that in a couple of months we could have a solution so that the F-22 is once more invisible and ready to massacre ground pounders and attack planes at will."
"And do you have that technology ready for that kind of boasts? We do have a reputation to uphold." Daria shook her head. "Not me, but Quinn has been working on that."
The redhead elaborated. "I already can use a repulsor to scramble the radiation and spoil target solutions of the Jericho's submunitions, the problem is the size of the affected object. Something of the size of a predator is going to need both an independent power source and at least two repulsors to work. Frankly the only plane that won't need a full rebuild is our Quinjet, and that's because is already filled with repulsors and got its own nuclear battery. Which in the end means that we'll do a lot of conversions in our hangars in the near future; nothing beats creating our own demand."
Amy then interrupted. "Sorry to interrupt, but Lieutenant Rowe is waiting Daria in the lobby. I already took the freedom to text her to wait for you to finish your breakfast but security scans report that she is either at the verge of cardiac arrest or is under effect of at least 350mg of caffeine."
"I guess that's my cue to leave."
Helen rose from her seat and kissed her daughter on the cheek. "Have a good trip dear."
"Bye Daria, try not to do anything particularly embarrassing, at least not when cameras can see you. Oh, and by the way I packed an additional suitcase with the latest in desert fashion. And before you complain those can be used with those big boots you seem to favor in college."
"You mean that I can use my Doc Martens in public meetings without being vetted by mom?"
"As long as you use the brown ones with the beige clothes and the black ones with the grey dress suit. And I already uploaded the designer's data on your glasses, so if a reporter asks tell him all that instead of kicking he with those boots, at least the first time. Oh, and by the way you ought Sandi Griffin an interview."
"I'll see what I can do about the interview and using the cue card you hacked into my glasses, but I make no promises regarding me kicking someone. There are limits to my self-control." With that she went to her room, a faint smile on her lip.
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